Biography

Irish-American actress who was particularly popular in American movies of the 1940s and '50s. But even in the 1990s she was working, in TV movies and film.

The daughter of an Irish contralto and business owner, she was the second of six children. Along with her siblings, O'Hara loved to sing and play-act as a child, and her mother sent her to elocution school. At the age of 14, with her innate talents obvious, she was accepted to the famed Abbey Theater.

During her theatrical training at Abbey in Dublin, she was invited to do a screen test in London, and she was introduced to actor Charles Laughton. Laughton was enchanted by this Irish red-haired beauty with beautiful green eyes and a peaches-and- cream complexion, and by the time she got back to the Abbey in Dublin, Laughton and his partner had extended to her a 7-year contract with their film company Mayflower Productions. Her first movie for the company was "Jamaica Inn" (1939) and she became known as Maureen O'Hara.

In 1939, she emigrated to the US. By age 20, she had already starred in two major motion pictures, "Jamaica Inn" followed by "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1920) O'Hara's talents were not limited to acting; she had a beautiful soprano voice and an athletic ability from her tomboyish childhood that did not conflict with her feminine image. She worked with many of the best directors of the times, including John Ford, Jean Renoir and Walter Lang. Her movies include "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947) "The Quiet Man" (1951), and "The Parent Trap" (1961),

In the early 1940s, she met and married Will Price and in June, 1944, they welcomed their daughter Bronwyn. However, Price had an alcohol problem and the marriage ended in divorce in 1952. In 1968, she married Charles Blair, an aviator, and she retired from films in 1973 after making the TV movie "The Red Pony" with Henry Fonda. She and her husband owned and managed a commuter sea plane service in the Caribbean and she published a magazine of the Virgin Islands. After Blair's death in a plane crash in 1978, she was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats, an airline she later sold. She has been coaxed out of retirement several times and has since made many movies for TV and cable TV.

Her many honors and awards include the British Film Institute Fellowship Award in 1993 for a lifetime of achievement and in 1998, the Helen Hayes Lifetime Achievement Award.

O'Hara died in her sleep on 24 October 2015 at her home in Boise, Idaho. She was 95.